Five countries will be urged to recognize Kosovo

Five countries will be urged to recognize Kosovo

The draft was prepared by the EP Rapporteur for Kosovo, Viola von Cramon-Taubadel in the Foreign Policy Committee.

According to the document, the invitation is not new, because the European Parliament is still the only EU institution that treats Kosovo as a state and asks member states to recognize Kosovo's citizenship, Radio Free Europe in Albanian reports.

"It was noticed that five member states did not recognize Kosovo, and they are again called upon to do so. It is emphasized that the recognition would be in favor of the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia," the draft report states.

A large part of the report is dedicated to the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, and it welcomes the resumption of the dialogue and the commitment in that process. Pristina and official Belgrade are called upon to continue their constructive engagement in the search for a comprehensive agreement, but also to implement the agreements reached so far. It also states that the agreement reached in Washington on September 4 on the normalization of economic relations emphasizes that transatlantic cooperation is a key factor of stability in the region and calls for more efforts to find out the fate of missing persons since the last war in Kosovo.

The report welcomes the establishment of the Regional Commission for the Facts of War Crimes and Serious Human Rights Violations in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia. "We call for greater efforts to review the claims of relatives of missing persons, to open war archives and to disclose data on persons still listed as missing from the 1998-99 war in Kosovo," the document said.

As it is stated, the report refers to a period of two years, because last year there was no EP Report due to the elections in the EU.

The draft report states that Kosovo continues to suffer from political instability, especially after the parliamentary elections in October 2019, and added that it should step up efforts to address the rule of law, the functioning of institutions and economic development.

The report underlines that Kosovo remains the only area in the Western Balkans region whose citizens need visas to travel to the Schengen countries, although Kosovo has met all the conditions for visa liberalization since 2018. The document also mentions that Kosovo needs to step up efforts to fight corruption, and that it needs to increase its capacity to produce energy from alternative sources.

The report will first be discussed in the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, where it will be voted on, and after that, it will be discussed and it will be adopted in the form of a resolution of the European Parliament during the plenary session.